This is a good house.

Its roof has kept us dry from torrential rains. Its walls have kept us warm from bitter prairie winters.

Now that we’ve been given the date that our new house will be finished, I find myself reflecting a lot about the moments in our lives this house has played a major role in.

This house has seen:

1 marriage
2 children
2 miscarriages
25 birthdays (combined family total)
7 children’s birthday parties (and it’s still standing!)
9 Christmases, Thanksgivings, Halloweens & Easters
4 surgeries
7 career changes
3 family deaths
1 family pet death
3 fish funerals
1 cranky old cat (that my husband says will never die)
1 near-disaster with a natural gas line (seriously, don’t ask)
2 roommates
1 very extended stay by my grandmother
3 trips to Urgent Care with miscellaneous childhood injuries

These walls have comforted my tired soul. They’ve been a soft place to land when life was rough with me. There were days when I thought it was all I could do to crawl into bed and hide under the covers away from a cruel world. But I have always been grateful to have such a wonderful home to come back to.

Pictures whirl through my memory like an artsy flashback/montage in a movie. I can’t help it, I think dramatically. There were tough times, real tough. We pulled through, pulled together, stayed together and stayed strong.

I’m not saying the I am defined by something as basic as four walls and a roof. But a home is something so much more than just that. It is structural love. Faith engineered.

Our new house will be lovely and shiny and probably off-gas VOC’s for five years. We’ve customized it to be exactly what we want, and I’m sure it won’t take long before it is a wonderful home to my family too.

This house will always have a special place in my heart. It was our first home, and its been good to us. I hope whoever moves in here next loves it as much as we do.

And that they pay full asking price.